Albrecht Höhler

Albrecht "Ali" Höhler (30 April 1898 – 20 September 1933) was a German Communist. He was a member of the Red Front Fighters Association (Roter Frontkämpferbund or RFB), the street-fighters of the Communist Party of Germany. He is known for the murder of Horst Wessel, a local leader in Berlin of the Nazi Party's SA stormtroopers. After the Nazis came to power, Höhler was taken out of prison and executed by the SA. The triggerman was the Berlin SA leader Karl Ernst.

Early life Born in Mainz, Höhler was a carpenter and became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1924. He was also a member of the Roter Frontkämpferbund and continued to be active in the RFB after its prohibition in 1929. By 1930, he was residing in the Mitte borough of Berlin. He was married to Margarete "Grete" Nickel.

Killing of Horst Wessel On 14 January 1930, the RFB was alerted about a rental dispute in Friedrichshain. Pub owner Elisabeth Salm was attempting to evict her tenant Horst Wessel from a subleased room, as Wessel refused to move out despite overdue rent payments and had now brought his girlfriend to continue living in the flat. According to information revealed in court, the notorious SA man was targeted for a "proletarian beating". This action was most likely politically motivated. Horst Wessel was called out as the "murderer of workers" in neighborhood posters put up by the Communist Party.

Wessel was involved in numerous violent actions against Communists in Berlin and was well known to Nazi Party Gauleiter (regional leader) Joseph Goebbels.

Imprisonment and assassination Höhler first fled to Prague, but then returned to Berlin, where he was arrested. On 26 September 1930, Höhler was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years and one month imprisonment at Wohlau Prison in Lower Silesia. Höhler's accomplices were sentenced to terms ranging from four months to six years for aiding in manslaughter. Elisabeth Salm, who was defended by Hilde Benjamin, was charged with aiding and abetting as well, and was ultimately sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. Diels (who concealed the facts in his memoirs), Ernst, Ernst's adjutant Walter von Mohrenschildt, Fiedler, Markus, the detectives Maikowski and Walter Pohlenz and possibly Gerd Voss, the legal adviser of the SA group in Berlin-Brandenburg.

Less than a year after Höhler's murder, Ernst, von Mohrenschildt, Voss, and Röhm were all summarily shot during the Night of the Long Knives. Prince Wilhelm was interned by the U.S. Army after the war. He was sentenced to two years in prison by a denazification court in 1948, and died in 1949. Diels was interned by the Allies until 1948, and died after his rifle accidentally discharged while he was hunting in 1957.

The investigation of the surviving perpetrators – Schmidt, Pohlenz, Markus, and Fiedler – was discontinued in 1969, as the prosecutors could only prove aiding and abetting the murder, for which the statute of limitations had already passed.